The issue missed by nearly all commentators was can a person ever be better off dead than alive? The answer, sadly, is yes.

We all know this is so. If your dad or grandmother is dying of cancer or lung disease and they are in pain, cannot breathe without distress or cannot do anything but moan and suffer, then many would say the time has come to stop medical interventions and let the loved one go.

The same can happen for a child. It did for Charlie. He was so sick, so disabled that continuing to try and “fix” him seemed to the doctors and nurses and courts who looked at his situation to be wrong to do so. Sometimes medicine is simply out of options and what is experimental might only lead to more misery. Charlie Gard is a tragic reminder that sometimes medicine must say “no more.”